


love be brave

by InSpades



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:40:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4642722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InSpades/pseuds/InSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post season two. Tommy and Grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love be brave

Love be brave  
No one will save you but me  
And that has not yet been  
The safest place for you to be  
~Laura Marling, Love Be Brave

He doesn’t come for her that day at the races. She waits until the sky starts turning pink with the setting sun, waits until the workers have moved on from giving her pitying glances to flat out ignoring her, moving around her as if she was another bench or table that would eventually need to be put up. She goes back to her hotel room, scrubs her skin until it’s pink and raw, and then stares at the ceiling until sleep finally takes her.

He doesn’t come the next day either. Or the next. By day four she realizes that the hard decisions that need to be made are hers alone.

Within a week, her husband (former husband, she reminds herself) is sailing back to America. The appropriate papers have been filed and there is just enough money to her name to rent a spartan room in a semi-respectable boarding house. He was kind to the end, but unwilling to pay for another man’s baby. She understood. She was unwilling to stay with a man she didn’t love, even if it meant being alone.

She grows bored waiting, filling her days with the minutiae of daily life such as feeding herself and the growing swell in her abdomen. She helps Mrs. Tyler, the owner of the boarding house, straighten out some bookkeeping issues. She takes on some mending jobs for some of other residents. And then when she’s done all she can to keep her mind busy and away from _him_ , she goes for long walks in the dusty streets of Birmingham.

It is on one of these walks that he finds her. 

“Grace.” She can’t tell anything from his voice, other than that he is here and alive and he still wants to speak to her. She turns, finds him leaning against a building, hat slung low, eyes only leaving her face to rest on the bump that strains against the front of her dress.

“Thomas.” She nods to him, then much to her surprise, her feet keep moving. He pushes off the wall, as cool and collected as ever, and falls into step alongside her. 

“I’m sorry, Grace.” He says it with that same toneless voice he used on her name. 

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” she clips out. It’s a lie; she didn’t realize until now just how angry she was with him. He made her wait, for weeks and weeks. Not even a letter to let her know he was okay, to let her know he was thinking about her and her unborn child. Their unborn child. She keeps propelling herself forward until he suddenly grabs her elbow and pulls her to a stop.

“Where have you been, Thomas?” she sighs, willing herself not to cry. 

“I had things to do. The horses. The licenses.” 

“All taken care of then?” She tries to sound flippant, but it comes out as bitter. She wonders if he spent the last two months in another woman’s bed. Wonders if she’s as brokenhearted as Grace is now. 

“Yes.” He takes a deep breath and nods, his eyes boring into hers. She is quickly losing the battle against her tears, can feel them filling her eyes and threatening to spill down her cheeks. He cups the side of her face with one hand, his thumb brushing against her cheekbone as she leans into his touch. “Grace,” he whispers and she comes undone. She presses her face into his jacket, clutching the lapels in her fists as she cries silently. She hates herself a little bit, for not being stronger, but it’s as if all the exhaustion and worry of the past weeks is crashing down on her at once and she can’t help herself.

His arms wind around her now, one hand carded into the hair at the nape of her neck, the other pressed gently into the small of her back. She breathes in the scent of him, tobacco and soap and ambition, and lets out a shaky sigh. She feels him press a kiss to the top of her head and it is so gentle and unlike him that she nearly starts crying all over again, the sting of fresh tears biting her eyes. 

“Come home with me,” he whispers into her hair and she nods against his chest. In the end, it is that easy to forgive him. She pulls away from him, dragging her hands underneath her eyes in an attempt to dry her cheeks. He produces a handkerchief from an inside pocket of his jacket and she dabs at her tears as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his hand lingering on the curve of her jaw.

They don’t speak as they walk to the Shelby home, don’t say a word as he pushes the door open and leads her by the hand up the stairs to his bedroom. She remains silent as his fingers work the buttons on her dress, as he pushes the fabric slowly down her arms and watches it pool on the floor. His hands trace up her bare arms, from wrist to shoulder, then glide down her ribcage until they come to rest on her belly, cupping the growing life there. He lets out a strangled sigh and she wonders if he is going to laugh or cry or both. “Another Shelby,” he whispers, almost reverently. She just nods, any words she could say caught in her throat.

He makes love to her like she’s something delicate, his fingertips ghosting across her skin, his lips pressing themselves gently to her eyelids, to the hollow of her throat, to the firm flesh just below her belly button. He whispers her name over and over as he moves above her, inside her, and when they are finished he draws her up in his arms and presses his face into her hair. 

“Stay with me.” It’s not a question, but she can hear the pleading behind it and it makes her heart ache. 

“Always, Thomas. Always,” she promises. The breath he was holding is released, the lines on his face smooth away. She smiles for the first time in ages as he draws up the blankets and curls himself around her. 

He can’t hear the shovels against the wall.


End file.
